That was when I noticed a lane between it and the next building. I shrugged off the queer feeling that it had not been there a moment past, for how could a lane suddenly appear? I had smiled, then, realising the red sill and lion-shaped knocker and the other things that I had seemed to recognise were only visual clichés I had encountered a dozen times in films and novels featuring that city.
I had gone to peer along the lane, wondering if it would bring me through to the main streets where I would find the library, but it was too shadowy to see properly when I was standing in the sunlight, so I stepped into it.
Thus did my younger self step unwittingly and perilously into the shadowy space where the realms of faerie and mortal reality overlap.
A man sat smoking on a stoop a little way down the shadowy lane. He had a dark, sculpted beard and a mass of coal-black curls flowing over his shoulders. His long legs were stretched out in front of him and the end of the black cigarillo in his fingers was a burning eye in the shadows as he drew on it. He expelled the smoke from his lungs in a long sighing breath and then turned his head to look at me.
I caught my own breath then, having never seen a man so profoundly handsome and so singularly wild looking. He had a long, beautiful, angular face, a straight nose and bright, almond-shaped turquoise eyes flecked with gold that reminded me of the canal water. Dark hairs curled above his collar and showed at his wrists, which were muscular and strong, but instead of his skin being swarthy to match, he was pale as milk. Unabashed by my stare, he held my gaze as he took another long pull at the cigarillo. I had drawn closer without intending it and heard the sound of dry tobacco crackling. Then he took the cigarillo from his lips and sent it spinning away into the shadows further along the lane.
I felt a fool as I realised how I must appear, standing there gawping at him as if he were a statue in a gallery. I said in a brisk voice, ‘I am sorry to disturb you, but I wonder if this lane will bring me to the main streets along the Grand Canal.’
He uncoiled and rose in a single movement, but instead of stepping towards me, he merely leaned back against the wall and slid his hands into his pockets, asking languidly, ‘I am not sorry that you disturb me, lovely lady. Are you lost?’ His voice was low and soft and seemed to insinuate itself against my skin like an affectionate cat.
‘I don’t mind being a little lost,’ I said.
As Cloud-Marie combs my hair, I blush a little at the boldness of my younger self, though I do not remember myself as bold, this being considered a serious character flaw by my parents.
I went back many times after that first shopping expedition, amassing brooms, dusters, cloths and other domestic and personal items enough to last a mortal life or two. Eventually the novelty of being able to buy what I needed palled for me, but I continued to cross and exchange faerie jewels for the things I needed out of simple necessity. Then one day my husband invited me to a picnic he had conjured for his mother’s court. It was all laid out upon magical cloths that would, once spread, offer whatever food and wine were desired in the thinnest golden plates and crystal goblets. He had got them on his last quest as a gift from a serpent sorceress whom he had done a service, he said, fluttering his eyelashes at me.
I scarcely noticed, for I saw at once how useful such cloths could be and was philistine enough to bundle up the nearest while my husband conjured for his guests an exquisite ballet of butterflies complete with orchestral accompaniment. It is amazing how one’s aesthetic senses fail in the face of simple, honest hunger. I meant to pull the cloth from under the plates and cutlery but discovered to my delight that, at a single deft twitch, all the dishes and leftover food upon it vanished. When the cloth was later laid out again on the floor of my bedroom, I was elated to find the dishes reappeared, gleaming and clean and bearing fresh food.